My Dad Loves My Daughters More Than Me!

28 May 2012 By 6 Comments

I bring my kids back to my parents’ house every week or once a fortnight to spend time with them. If I happen to miss this routine for some reason or another, either my dad or my mum would give me a ‘courtesy’ call during the week. “Are you guys coming back for dinner this weekend? I miss you so much!” 

It’s heartwarming that my parents miss me so much, but the truth is, they just miss THE KIDS. I don’t really want to admit this, but my position as the ‘apple of the eye’ in my parents’ household has long been usurped by the two girls in my house. You should see how their eyes light up whenever they see their grand-daughters. Those eyes used to be reserved for me! Boohoooo!

But of course, I am not really that sad of course. I actually feel very happy that I am able to bring such joy to my parents.  And bringing them back to visit my parents as often as I can, is my way of being filial to them. I love to watch how much love goes on between my parents and my kids. And even though I know my parents are sometimes spoiling the kids, I let them do it, because I know how happy that makes them. =)

Their affection for each other is mutual. My kids absolutely adores their grandparents. During the week, they would ask about them, and ask me to bring them home to visit them. They love hanging out with their grandparents, and I half suspect it’s because they know they will indulge them. Kids nowadays are very smart.

Last weekend, we went for dinner at a new place. We love to explore new places to have family dinners together, just for the fun of it. So we went to try ‘SoulOut’, which is located at Pasir Ris Farmway.

We were there for a very early dinner, so the whole restaurant was empty except for us. It was nice to be able to dine in a very quiet and peaceful place, away from the bustle of the usual eateries during weekends. Unless you drive, this place is quite inaccessible.

We were there for a very early dinner, so the whole restaurant was empty except for us. It was nice to be able to dine in a very quiet and peaceful place, away from the bustle of the usual eateries during weekends. Unless you drive, this place is quite inaccessible.

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Although this restaurant serves the usual ‘zi char’ Chinese food, the place looks more like a cafe or place to have beers and peanuts. With all the different football clubs’ flags hanging around, this should be a popular hangout place for soccer fans. I can imagine the fans cheering their favourite teams on during the football seasons here in this place.

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For the kids, this place is fun because there’s a pond outside the restaurant, and the staff were very nice to give the kids some fish feed to feed the fishes. My kids absolutely love feeding fishes.

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Dinner was served very quickly as we were the only customers there. The food turned out to be pretty good!

Sesame & Ginger Chicken

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Stir-fried clams with chili

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Hotplate Sambal Sotong

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Onion Fried Eggs

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Stir-fried Dou Miao with Mushrooms & Prawns

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If you are looking for a place to have a quiet & nice dinner during the weekends, you can try Soulout! I like it that the place is quiet and peaceful, and I could have a good chat with my parents over dinner. The kids could also roam around the place and have fun watching & feeding the fishes. They are open till 5pm during the weekdays and till late during weekends. So dinner is only available during weekends. =)

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Filed Under: Singapore, Uncategorized, What to do this week-end Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Kids Play: Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden

22 May 2012 By 6 Comments

I am thankful that there are many places in Singapore that I can bring my children to, knowing they would learn something useful and yet have lots of fun at the same time. Best of all, most of these places are provided free-of-charge. Anything free is fabulous and worthy to be praised. One such place that I really like is the Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden. The garden is part of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, but you must access it via the NUS Bukit Timah Entrance. My girls love it whenever we bring them to the Jacob Ballas, and you’ll see why.

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Jacob Ballas is usually not crowded, and that’s what I like about the place. It’s probably because the garden is big, so there are lots of spaces for running around. Perfect for children, I say. Plus, fresh air anytime is good.

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And as we walk in the garden, I’ll usually point out the different plants to my kids, if I know its something they know or can identify with. Thankfully, my girls are pretty inquisitive and interested to learn most of the time.(Unless when we get near to the playground!)

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We found this mini hanging bridge and the girls had fun running to and fro it.

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And there is also a mini waterfall within the park. =) The inside of the cave was probably the coolest spot in the whole park, LOL!

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And of course, the central attraction of the park is this treehouse & slide!

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I’m sure my girls don’t mind having such a treehouse in our backyard (When we have a backyard).

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For some fresh air and plenty of spaces to walk and explore, the Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden is a great choice. =)

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Coming to the Garden is a feast for the eyes. Everything is green and pretty.

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We spotted forget-me-nots and we stopped to ‘touch and close’ them. Forget-me-nots always fascinate kids. I remember being fascinated myself as a kid!

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And the part the kids were really looking forward to was the WATER PLAY! The weather was so scorching hot I wished I could jump in myself. The cold water will be very welcome! But for fear of ruining my public image, I curbed myself.

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Now you can see why Jacob Ballas Children’s Garden is one of our favorites. It’s got everything nice and fun. =)

Filed Under: Parenting, Singapore, What to do this week-end Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Hello Singapore !

18 May 2012 By 10 Comments

If I have a pen pal, how would I introduce Singapore to her?
Tourism brochures might hype on MBS, Merlion, Sentosa and Flyer for good reasons.
These are Singapore’s icons and money spinner :)

But I would recommend my pen pal to tour our unique HEARTLANDS !

Hawker centres sustain our meals, Singaporeans built their homes in high rise HDB apartments. Urban Singapore got both old and new buildings co-existing. Even the different faiths can practice side by side, church, temples, mosques all within close proximity. Splendid !

A city of paradoxes and contrasts.
My friend, I thought you might be interested to know how real Singaporeans
Live, Eat, Play and Party in tiny Singapore.

Singapore is only 640sq and we are half the size of New York City.
Yet, 5 million people are packed into our city.

#01 Some people refuse to believe that Singapore still have gardens to cater to people’s well-being. From Changi International Airport to your hotel, you will see rows of green foliage along East Coast Parkway (ECP) greeting our visitors. Singapore used to be a “garden city”, but is now a “City in a Garden”. [nParks]

#02 Most Singaporeans live in Housing Development Board (HDB) apartment flats, typically highrise buildings from 10 to 50 storeys. You will see skyscrapers everywhere in Singapore, as land is so scarce. You might wonder how we utilise the sun to dry our clothes?
Look at photo of beanpoles below.[URA and HDB]

#03 Shopping is one of Singapore’s passion. No worries my friend,
I am not going to ask you to count the number of shopping centres.
Orchard road carries 2km of Singapore’s shopping belt. Since Singapore is always hot, that’s why the ladies are not complaining about shopping in aircon comfort.

#04 Eating is the other national hobby. Normal Singaporeans eat at hawker centres or food courts. Although you will not have waiters and butlers, you get quality food at economy price.
Try to blend in with the locals, and I promise you a new meaning to “alfresco“.
(eating and perspiring at the same time haha)

As Singapore is a multi-racial country, you can stretch your tastebud with India’s curry, China’s noodles, Tom Yam, Sashimi and Kim Chi. Lamp chop from New Zealand, salmon from Norway, prime sirloin from USA, and durians from Malaysia. The world is our supermarket.

If you still need burgers and sandwiches, you can always get fast food from MacDonald and Subway. Singaporean is a fortunate bunch. We are obsessed and blessed with food.
If you love to eat, you will be spoil for choices in Singapore.

#05 We travel around Singapore on our public transport system like MRT (trains), buses, and cabs. Although we have an efficient system, it is no secret that our youths aspire to own their own set of wheels, even when a 1.6l sedan will set you back by SGD 90,000 !

What other things can you attempt in Singapore, beside Eating, and Shopping?

a) Visit migrating birds from as far away as Siberia !
[Nature Society Singapore]

b) The no1 dare factor, would be attempting to swallow the durian, king of fruit.
Spiky outside, fleshy and pungent inside. Most westerners agree it is an acquired taste, and it taste better when they pinch their nose :p

Durian is not to be mistaken with our Esplanade Arts Theatre !

My friend, when you leave Singapore, I hope you will tell your country folks that Singapore is not only about “chewing gum, capital punishment, and lack of human rights”. We are actually a Fine city :)

Amaze your neighbours by peppering your speech with new lingos like “Durians, beanpoles, CTE/ECP/HDB (all the abbreviations), and throw in some Singlish “oooh, lah and wah” !

Singapore is only boring if you believe so.
Even our kids know where are the happening places !

*** How would you share Singapore with your oversea friends?

Your pen pal,
Andy Lee

photo Credit – most photos above are taken from “Wikipedia.org“

Filed Under: Singapore, What to do this week-end Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Authentic Singapore Experience: Tekka Market

16 May 2012 By 6 Comments

If you’re in Asia, you just have to visit a wet market. It’s a fresh food market and got the name as water is used to clean the floors. It’s a bit like a farmer’s market but much more ‘rustic’ in terms of hygiene. Tekka Market is one of those and it has an amazing hawker food section as well. There are also stalls on the second floor where you can buy traditional Indian clothing like Salwar Kameez, but known as Punjabi suits here. Since Little India is a must see, it’s convenient that Tekka Market happens to be located here. The building has been here since 1982. I just found out that Tekka means Bamboo clumps in Hokkien. But if you go back in history, the original Tekka Market was built across the current site, way back in 1915. If you’re interesting in more of the history you can read about it here.

I would recommend this place for lunch. I love Yakader for their chicken briyani. There are also loads of other cuisines to choose from as the market is pretty huge.

I would also recommend the place for breakfast or tea. Definitely try Teh Alia (ginger tea with milk). There is this Appam stall but it’s best if they make it fresh for you. Cold Appam is not as tasty. It comes with orange sugar. Appam consists of fermented coconut flour and yeast. It’s fun to watch the mixture rise on a hot griddle.

But the main thing is to have a seat and people watch. Come in your lightest tank tops shorts and flip flops as it can get pretty hot and stuffy in here. But it depends on where you sit. Unfortunately the area near my favourite Briyani stall is the stuffiest.

photo by bookjunkie

The fruit here is pretty amazing. I recently saw rambutans which I absolutely love. Another thing you must do, if you’re in Asia on holiday. It happens to be in season now.

photo by bookjunkie

Here are some other photos I took as I was walking around.

photo by bookjunkie

This was taken just opposite the market and where you can continue your tour of Little India. Even though I’ve lived here all my life, it’s always fun to be a tourist in my own country.

photo by bookjunkie

Filed Under: Singapore, What to do this week-end Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Kids-Friendly Restaurant: PizItalia

14 May 2012 By 6 Comments

I got to know about this relatively new restaurant along East Coast Park from a colleague, and thought it would be good to check it out with my kids. The main reason for my excitement is because there is a free indoor playground PizItalia is very kids-friendly, and God knows we need more of such eating places in Singapore.

It’s almost impossible to miss this restaurant, because it’s got a dramatic moving dinosaur right at its entrance! This idea totally rocks because many kids were attracted to it. My kids were no exception.

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Before we even entered the restaurants, they were bugging me to take photographs of them with the dinosaur. And I was thinking the owners are pretty smart to put something like that at their shop entrance.

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Well, the best part about this restaurant is really the fact that it has a FREE indoor playground for kids –Jurakids Land! They even have a staff who’s stationed inside to watch the kids as they play. That’s really a nice service for the parents, I say. Before the kids enter the playground, parents have to fill up a form, indicating their contact numbers and table numbers, so that in case the kids want to leave the playground, the staff can bring the kids back to their parents at their tables. Nice.

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And if you think a free playground would mean some simple setup, you are wrong! The Jurakids Land is 3-storey high structure with slides, ball pool and lots of stairs! I couldn’t stop smiling from ear to ear the moment we stepped in. Free?? Too good to be true. Nowadays, parents can expect to pay at least $15 per hour of play time during the weekends in such indoor playgrounds!

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The kids could hardly wait to get in and play. We were there on a Saturday mid-afternoon, and we were the only customers in the shop then. The kids had the whole playground to themselves. Check out the glee on their faces. =)

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On to the food, I must say I was not very impressed with the pastas, but their fried chicken wings and salad were yummy. This salad was sweet & sourish – Very appetizing! And definitely a pretty sight, don’t you agree? =)

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This plate of chicken wings (3 pieces) cost us more than $6, but I like it that it’s dry and crispy.

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The best pasta among the few we ordered should be the seafood pasta with a spicy sambal taste. The rest were just alright taste-wise, although the ingredients were all very fresh.

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I ordered creamy mushroom pasta for the kids. $5.50 for kids’ meal, and you can choose between nuggets, spaghetti bolognaise, creamy mushroom or fish & chips. The kids’ meal does not come with any drinks or ice-cream.

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If you are looking for a place where you can dine in peace while the kids sweat it out free-of-charge, this is one of the places you can consider. They also offer pizza & pasta making classes for children, as well as party-hosting services. =)

PizItalia is situated at:

East Coast Seafood Centre
1204 East Coast Parkway
#01-06 Singapore 449882

Opening Hours:
5pm – Midnight on Weekdays
12pm – Midnight on Weekends
Hotline: 6445 8554

Filed Under: Parenting, Singapore, What to do this week-end Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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